Black people also had the highest proportion
of their stops (21%) for reasonable suspicion,
while the most common reason for stops of
people of all races was traffic violations. Black
people were searched at 2.5 times the rate of
people perceived as white.
And the odds were 1.45 times greater that
someone perceived as Black had force used
against them during a traffic stop compared to
someone perceived as white. The odds were 1.18
times greater for people perceived as Latino.
Reform efforts have often focused on increasing
training to make officers aware of how their
implicit, or unconscious, bias may affect their
interactions. Starting this year, a new law also
requires agencies to screen job applicants for
implicit and explicit biases.
“Unchecked explicit bias may lead to some of
the stop data disparities we have observed,” the
board said.
Explicitly racist or bigoted social media posts
by some law enforcement officers appear
to be a widespread problem nationwide, it
said, citing a study by the Plain View Project
that examined the Facebook accounts of
2,900 active and 600 retired officers in eight
departments across the country.
In California, current and former San Jose Police
Department officers were found to have shared
racist Facebook posts. Other agencies, including
the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department
and San Francisco Police Department, have been
involved in similar issues.
The board recommended that agencies review
employees’ social media posts and routinelyImage: Rich Pedroncelli